


The rules are simple

by ironicallyinternational



Series: Not quite dating [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, One Shot, cliché anime tropes included, early stages of the meteor trip, hopscotch fic, prompted, the mayor ships it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 20:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3867967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironicallyinternational/pseuds/ironicallyinternational
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: writing the hopscotch scene from Vriskagram</p>
<p>"“This is a hopscotch?” Karkat asked, incredulously. He was being a bit rude for someone who had almost cried with relief when Dave had offered him an escape from his boredom, but he was Karkat Vantas, after all."</p>
<p>It's still only the very start of their long voyage. Dave and Karkat both discover that being friends with each other is easier than it sounds. (The harder part, in fact, is to avoid becoming something rather different)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The rules are simple

**Author's Note:**

> prompted on my tumblr: "Your piece on the couch scene was great! Do one on the hopscotch scene next?"
> 
> I wasn't really sure what to do with that, so I kind of made it into Dave and Karkat's awkward first attempts at hanging out together, and took a few liberties. My asshole friend also asked me to write something davekat with them "falling into each other's arms like some anime shit", so I added that in here, haha.
> 
> Thanks for the prompt, anon, hope you enjoy this.

Dave wasn’t especially looking for him, really, he’d swear it.

Still, he _was_ kind of wandering over towards a certain section of the meteor, inhabited by a certain alien with certain tendencies to rant and ramble.

If he was being honest with himself, which he rarely was, it was mostly just that he was curious. They’d been on the meteor for almost three weeks now, which was enough time to fall into a semi-comfortable rhythm.

Dave got up, lounged about, went to hang out with Rose or Terezi, bickered with Karkat, insulted Vriska and/or Gamzee, went back to his room and went to bed. To be fair, he did spend a lot of time ‘in bed’ drawing SBAJ comics or composing raps, but he was still kind of invested in exploring the meteor.

He figured if Vriska wasn’t there he could be hanging with TZ like 24/7 because she was cool and up for shenanigans, but Vriska was a possessive bitch and Dave didn’t want to spend more time than necessary around her. He didn’t think anyone did.

Except, evidently, Terezi.

He still wasn’t really sure what the hell had happened to the trolls, but from what he gathered like half of them got murdered and two of the murderers were just chilling on the meteor, which he was not cool with. Gamzee only ever appeared to stalk Terezi or talk (???) to Karkat, and Dave was more than happy to keep it that way. He would have been more than happy to keep it that way with Vriska too, frankly, but hey.

Still, it was becoming increasingly clear that Vriska wasn’t going to leave Terezi alone, desperate for forgiveness or whatever, and Rose and Kanaya were verging dangerously into alien makeout zone. So sue Dave if he wasn’t that fond of the idea of spending three years a loner.

There was the Mayor, of course, or whatever the little guy’s real name was. That guy was cute as hell. Dave was also pretty sure the guy was much smarter than he let on, but either way.

The thing was, when Dave had first me them all, he’d pretty much thought that Karkat was going to annoy the hell out of him. He did, kind of, but mostly he was…Well. Not all that bad. Sure, he got hissy about Terezi once in a while, but they seemed to be figuring things out or whatever, so Dave didn’t have to endure some weird possessive fight for the lady’s hand or whatever. He’d wondered if he and Terezi would, perhaps, become a thing during their trip. He wasn’t opposed to the idea, but when they’d briefly and awkwardly discussed it, he’d kind of been relieved they could just be friends.

Dave wasn’t sure he really wanted a relationship at this point of his life, much less with a freaky alien chick, even though Terezi was pretty damn awesome.

Anyway, the point was that Karkat had turned out significantly less annoying than Dave had expected, meaning that his info about said troll needed an update. So yeah, he was curious. Besides, Rose and Kanaya’s almost dating thing was pushing him uncomfortably close to thinking about some parts of himself he _really_ didn’t want to think about, so he clearly needed to find a bro to hang out with.

And here he was, casually wandering about just as Karkat happened to exit his room. (Shut up, he had _not_ been waiting for him to come out.)

The troll didn’t register his presence for a moment, so Dave nonchalantly rocked back on his heels and spoke up.

“Sup, Vantas?”

The tone he delivered it with was so chill it almost didn’t sound like a question.

Karkat looked towards him, startled, before scowling cautiously.

“Strider. What do you want?”

_I need friends_ sounded really, really sad. _I’m curious about you_ made him sound like a mix between a sociopath slash stalker and a love-sick teenager.

Beatboxing also didn’t sound like a great idea.

“Trying to find someone that isn’t currently in the process of making out, I guess.” Dave said instead, shrugging, the very picture of _I don’t care_. “No offense to you, but your troll ladies are shameless.”

Karkat snorted, either to convey irritation or amusement. “Let’s not forget your…relation is part of this cycle of macking on each other.”

“Ecto-sis, you mean.” Dave corrected, just to be a dick. “Not her fault, anyhow; we’re way outnumbered by y’all. There’s a ratio of four to two here.” And then, because he was an idiot: “I mean, there’s also a ratio of, like, two to four for the “murderous psychopaths” thing, which starts becoming kind of worrying when you think about it too long. Does Terezi count as a murderous psycho?”

“I’d think so, yeah. I guess you can include Kanaya too, seeing as she literally chainsawed Eri- some dude in half.” Karkat said, pulling a face. “Which makes the ratio three to three, if I’m not counting your ecto-thing’s descent into insanity.”

“I’m not sure if I should comment on the chainsawing thing or on the worrying number of murderous psychopaths thing. But I guess if we’re implying that the chainsawing thing is the equivalent of the insanity thing, then Kanaya and Rose pretty much balance each other out, so I’m going to go with the fact that apparently I am currently in the company of the only non-psychopath on board.” Dave said, a part of his brain pointing out that Karkat himself didn’t seem like the most stable individual.

“Joy.” Karkat said, dryly, probably thinking the same thing about Dave.

“Let’s not forget the Mayor.” Dave pointed out, suddenly remembering his new buddy.

“I’m not so sure he’s sane, though.” Karkat argued, “Or that he’s not secretely some kind of ninja assassin.”

“Yeah, but a cute ninja assassin.”

At that, Karkat tilted his head, as if to concede a point. For a second, Dave’s stomach did something weird.

“Not that I don’t want to continue standing around like nookmunching idiots all day long, but could we maybe not stand around like nookmunching idiots all day long?”

Right, so maybe Dave had forgotten they were standing awkwardly in the corridor.

“Yeah, sure. Nice talking to ya.” Cool and to the point. Good. Dave was not in any way disappointed.

“I didn’t mean I wanted to stop talking, you douchewaffle, I meant _let’s move_!” Karkat snapped, before pausing and retreating back into himself. “Unless you have other things to do, which would be understandable, seeing as I also have things that need to be done, and-”

Dave felt embarrassingly relieved.

“No, dude, it’s cool, let’s just go down to Can Town or something.”

Karkat stopped mid-rant, looking almost offended at the interruption.

“Do we have to? All that’s in there is the Mayor’s useless although admittedly adorable city, a bunch of dusty chalk and probably the Scourge duo.”

His nose wrinkled at the end of his sentence. Dave was pretty sure that a) there was definitely something wrong with his stomach, because it was acting weird again, and b) that he was referring to Vriska and not Terezi when he wrinkled his nose.

“I’m going to ignore your blatant insult of Can Town in favour of pointing out it’s like 90% certified that Serket convinced TZ to find somewhere else to chill at. Probably some chalk haven filled with multi-colored spiders and dragons where they can happily hopscotch their way into some hardcore making out.”

Karkat took a moment to decipher his rambling, then frowned. “What the hell is a hopscotch?”

Dave blinked. Okay, unexpected.

“You don’t know what hopscotch is? Seriously?”

“Well, excuse me for not knowing every single pointless term in your ridiculous language! Why don’t you come back to me when you’ve learnt Alternian?” Karkat hissed, defensively. Maybe Dave had gone a _little_ overboard with his incredulity.

“No, bro, I’ll show you- we just need some chalk,” he said, gesturing to the staircase. “Trust me on this.”

“Right, yeah, because you’ve really inspired that so far.” Karkat drawled, following him nevertheless as he turned and headed downwards.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“You want me to do _what_?”

Dave sighed, like he wasn’t the one who had just asked Karkat to draw some weird cultist square drawing thing.

“Dude. Just help me out here. It’s just a bunch of square-ish shapes.”

“What, like a grid?”

“No, just an arrangement of squares, jeeze.”

“Well excuse me if your description of interlocking polygons isn’t the greatest! What are _you_ even doing?”

“Chill, I’m just- Oh, hey. The mayor’s already drawn it for us.”

The mayor had, indeed, drawn them a weird thing in bright red chalk (of course), with numbers in neat little boxes.

“ _This_ is a hopscotch?” Karkat asked, incredulously. He was being a bit rude for someone who had almost cried with relief when Dave had offered him an escape from his boredom, but he _was_ Karkat Vantas, after all.

The human snorted. “OK, first off, it’s not _a_ hopscotch, it’s just hopscotch. And secondly, hopscotch is when you jump on the boxes.”

Karkat stared at him, as blankly as possible. There was no way in hell he was jumping on that.

Luckily, his stare proved convincing, as Dave sighed melodramatically (Karkat was beginning to suspect that the human was rather more of a drama queen than he claimed to be) and headed over to the bottom of the thing.

“If someone had told me a month ago that I’d be showing a grey, horned alien with anger management issues how to play hopscotch during my three year voyage to another universe while a tiny chess piece watched me…” Dave mused, as Karkat glared at him in suspicion.

If this was some kind of human trick about to blow Karkat’s face off, he swore…

Dave then began hopping around from one square to another, momentarily stunning Karkat.

When he reached the end, he spread his arms in mock self-congratulations.

For a moment, Karkat just looked at him in disbelief.

“I…” Karkat began, blinking hard. “I can’t even- How do humans even _begin_ to come up with these things?”

“A lot of free time, bro. ‘Sides, didn’t you create us, technically?” Dave paused, clearly about to go on some bullshit monologue. “This is all from your subconscious. Deep, deep down, way inside, you have a desire to jump happily through geometrical shapes with a smile on your face and a flowercrown on your head. You’d never reveal it, not even to yourself, but since you’re very-”

“OK, wow, shut up.” Karkat barked out, before the human went on another senseless tirade. Gog. He was starting to feel some inkling of sympathy for those who’d put up with his own rants, even though he strongly doubted even _his_ rants were as random and pointless as Dave’s.

“I’ll jump around to your frigid bloodpusher’s content; just don’t become Lalonde 2.0, seriously.”

Dave pulled a face, in a very expressionless way, at the mention of his…what was the word? Screw it. At the mention of Lalonde’s amazing brand of teen psychology.

“Knock yourself out.”

“I’m going to assume that’s a human expression and not a prediction.” Karkat quipped, pausing in his stride to allow their little carpacian companion to add a few brushes to the outline of the…thing.

Whatever the mayor’s backstory was, Karkat was glad he was on board, although he didn’t quite adore the thing in the way Dave already seemed to. Strider was extremely confusing.

Sighing internally at the way the universe liked to ridicule him, Karkat stared intently at the hopscotch grid, as it would henceforth be called in his head. So, he had to put his one foot in the first one, then two, then one, then two, and-

A very suspicious sound jerked him out of his concentration.

His head shot up to glare at the human, who was completely poker-faced and very obviously struggling to remain so.

“ _What_?”

Dave made a pained noise, then motioned towards him. “I’m sorry, it’s just- you do realize it’s just a kids’ game, right? Not, like, the analysis of the dichotomy between good and evil.” The twangy accent he had and that Lalonde conspicuously lacked seemed to have become more pronounced, making his words stretch out.

Karkat scowled.

“Well, _excuse me_ for trying to do things properly, it’s not like I’m already burning away the little remaining sanity I have to indulge in this nonsense, you lackadaisical vapid globefondler!”

Now Dave was definitely snickering, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth as his shoulders shook slightly.

Karkat felt himself growling in irritated embarrassment before he had even thought about it. The mayor, near his feet, made a curious noise, snapping him out of it.

Purposefully, he slammed his foot down on the first square, before completing the ridiculous grid with a vengeance.

Dave had thankfully stopped laughing when he reached the end of it, although he saw his lips twitch when he finally slammed his foot down on the last square.

“I hope you’re happy, nookstain.” Karkat grumbled, casting an apologetic look towards the mayor, whose round, vacant eyes were watching them intently.

Dave, apparently, had regained some control over his coolkid façade, or whatever the fuck he had going, because his tone was as monotone as ever when he replied: “Your insults are grossly xenophobic, you know. I know jack shit about your freaky alien anatomy.”

“Yeah, well. I’m sure it’s better than whatever you guys have going on down there.”

Dave, apparently done conversing, then decided to grab a piece of chalk and start tracing something behind the previous hopscotch grid. Karkat watched him in silence, vaguely curious and prepared for the worst.

When he was finished, the human stood up, brushed his hands off, and gestured silently towards the new grid.

The mayor started at it in confusion while Karkat waved a hand in mild annoyance.

“The hell is that supposed to be?”

“Human male anatomy. You’re welcome.”

_No_ s _hit_ , he felt like saying. He’d been commenting on the unknown purpose of drawing it, not the drawing itself.

Still…

Karkat stared at it in vague disgust. It did look vaguely like a bulge, if said bulge had been run over by Gl’bolyb and chewed on by a bunch of ravenous grubs- that is to say, nothing like a bulge at all. Still, he was pretty sure Dave’s lack of artistic talent had contributed to the weirdly shaped thing, because he honestly didn’t want to imagine how such a thing would even work.

Instead of voicing any of this, he instead focused on another more gross part of humanity: “Eugh. I forgot you disgusting slobberbeasts have different sets of anatomy.”

“Yeah, uh, don’t expect me to start drawing that here.” Dave responded, ignoring the insult entirely.

Karkat frowned, something striking him as odd (apart from the hideously-awkward-to-defend conversation they were carrying out, that was). When it hit him, he commented: “You know, for a planet that had such big issues with “homosexuality”, human males sure like drawing dicks a lot.”

Dave opened his mouth, then closed it.

“That…was a genuinely astute and kind of hilarious observation. Uh. Wow.”

Karkat could feel his stare practically _through_ his shades.

“Gee, thanks, Strider. I’m glad my words are such an inspiration.”

Dave was still kind of staring in disbelief when the mayor tugged on his sweater, forcing him to look down.

“What is it?” Karkat asked, voice softening involuntarily. The guy was just really cute. (The mayor, that is. Not Strider.)

The carapacian pointed silently to the original hopscotch, gesturing to himself.

“Uh...You want to...try doing it?” Karkat questioned, as the alien shaked his head quickly.

“Maybe he can’t jump or something.” Dave said, making Karkat himself jump at his sudden proximity.

“Could you maybe not _breathe down my shoulder_ when I’m talking to someone? Or, you know, in general?”

“Calm down, captain touchy. I’m just tryin’ to see what the mayor wants.”

The mayor was surveying them both quietly.

“Do you want us to show you how to do it again, lil dude?” Dave asked, grinning swiftly as the mayor nodded his head rapidly.

“Cool. Karkat will do it.”

“Again? Seriously? No. You go do it. I’ve sufficiently humiliated myself today, thank you.”

“Look at the mayor, man. Look at what you’re doing.”

The mayor’s expressionless little face radiated disappointment.

(Karkat was starting to feel like maybe he was playing them both, but either way, he couldn’t let _that_ continue.)

“FINE!”

He stomped over to the first square as Dave and the mayor ambled over, standing by the side.

“We’re rooting for you, man. Full on cheer squad. Here by the sidelines for you 24/7. Always watching.”

“Shut up, oh my everloving fuck.”

He reached squares five and six with no incident and was about to tackle square seven when, _completely out of the blue_ , he felt himself stumble over some mysterious object of nefarious intent, making a surprised noise as he fell.

Falling, of course, meant falling _o n Dave_ , and his basic survival instincts kicked in just as Dave gave a surprised “woah” and reached out to steady him, resulting in a lot of fumbling and wobbling.

“Shit-”

“Son of a-”

By the time they’d both more or less steadied, Dave was a breath away, clutching Karkat’s arms just as tightly as Karkat was gripping fistfuls of his shirt. From here, up close, momentarily too stunned to move, Karkat could see the faint freckles dotting his cheeks and the light pink spreading through them, as his eyes, wide behind his sunglasses, surveyed him in shock.

“I think the mayor tripped me.” Karkat managed, almost a whisper. He wasn’t quite able to rip his eyes away to check. Or, in fact, to get any of his stupid limbs to move.

“Yeah, totally.” Dave whispered back dazedly, cheeks burning. Karkat felt his own face heat up at the little air between them.

A sudden clicking noise startled them both, making them jump apart at the speed of light. The mayor blinked at them innocently, still holding part of the piece of chalk that had fallen to the floor. In his blank, watchful gaze, nothing but absolute innocence shone- and yet, Karkat saw the fleeting glash of smug satisfaction crystal clear as it disappeared from view.

“Did you see that?!”

“Huh?”

Dave was watching him rather absently, jerking guiltily when Karkat looked up.

“The mayor, Strider! He-”

He forgot what he was going to say as they stared at each other yet again, before clearing his throat rather aggressively. He was barely even friends with the guy, gog. This was not the time to start freaking out about a bit of confused emotions.

“OK, fuck, that was- let’s just mutually blame this on your hopscotch witchcraft and agree to not speak about it, yeah?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dave said a bit too fast, sounding vaguely relieved. “These hopscotch games get pretty intense, man. Back on Earth it was a national event and shit.”

Karkat scoffed loudly, getting his treacherous pulse to finally calm down.

“I’m calling bullshit on that one.”

“No, I’m not even joking, dude, this is-”

“KARKAT! There you are!” Vriska screeched obnoxiously, rounding the corner with Terezi in tow. “Pyrope here has been looking for you since _forever_.”

“Hey, Karkles!” Terezi grinned, before turning to Dave. “Coolkid! Rose is looking for you, too- she wanted to talk about something concerning a “mom” or something?”

“Right, yeah. I’m on it, Officer.” Dave said, having recovered from his surprise faster than Karkat. He mock saluted as he walked off, pausing by the corner to tilt his head at them. “Ladies.” He hesitated for an instant, eyes on Karkat, before saying, a bit less loudly: “Vantas.”

“Bye.” Karkat said, bluntly, before mentally gritting his teeth. _Come on, Vantas._

“Hey, Strider?”

Dave turned, casually. “Yup?”

“You weren’t finished proving that hopscotch is a major tradition on your shitty planet.”

Dave stiffened, then almost smiled. “Damn straight I wasn’t. We’ll have to do that tomorrow.”

“I’ll look forward to that.” Karkat said, sarcastically, but he kind of meant it.

Dave smirked and leaft, cape wooshing dramatically after him as he went.

“Since when do you and Dave hang out?” Terezi asked as soon as he was gone, while Vriska pretended to be disinterested.

“We don’t _hang out_ , Terezi, we hung out _once_.” Karkat protested, even though there was nothing to protest.

“But you’re going to do it again.” Terezi pointed out, grinning sharply.

Karkat groaned. “Can we not? What did you want, anyway?”

Terezi dropped it, to his relief. “Vriska and I need someone to assist us with some criminal affairs. I’m afraid, Mr Mayor,” she said, turning towards the mayor conspiratorially, “There’s been a murder in Can Town.”

Karkat groaned again, more loudly. “Seriously? _That_ ’s the big issue?”

“Tell _me_ about it.” Vriska said, rolling her eyes.

Terezi shot her a Look. “Miss Mindfang, do you perchance protest the investigation into this grizzly crime?”

“Uh. No.”

“Good! Then I’ll assume Threshecutioner Vantas has no complaints either, and the affair can proceed.”

She sauntered by them to enter the room, cackling to herself as she went. Vriska followed her, sighing loudly for show, and the mayor trailed after them, blinking at Karkat.

Karkat stayed back a moment, staring at the chalk on the floor with a vague feeling of contentment.

Dave Strider, it appeared, was full of suprises.

Maybe this meteor trip wouldn’t be too bad after all.

When he turned around, the mayor was watching him silently, gaze unreadable and stare fixed.

Karkat nearly screeched.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The Wayward Vagabond surveyed the grey text knight curiously as he let out a stream of curses.

The grey text knight was called _Karkat_ , actually, and wasn’t really a grey text knight but more of a red blood knight. Although he was, indeed, rude and unpleasant, he was actually quite aimable most of the time.

The Wayward Vagabond much preferred him to the rather dumb boy he had tried to help initially, although the red time knight was his favourite of the strange crew.

Still, he thought that he quite liked the two knights. He especially liked it when they were both together. They were both knights, after all. It was so obvious. (Even though they themselves didn’t really seem to understand that)

Aliens were so stupid.

The Wayward Vagabond sighed internally. He supposed he was going to have to take matters into his own hands.

To think he was here, a war veteran lost in space, trying to get two Heroes to get (it) together…

Well, he supposed there were worse fates.

Even though, seriously, aliens were _really_ stupid.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was very fun to write, lmao.   
> As always, reviews and prompts are very welcome, and my tumblr is quidfree.  
> I still have one davekat prompt to write, so keep your eyes open for that!


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